


The Night of Souls

by everstar81



Category: Reaper of Souls - Fandom, diablo 3 - Fandom
Genre: Multi, Night of Souls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-16
Updated: 2014-06-16
Packaged: 2018-02-04 23:31:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1797346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everstar81/pseuds/everstar81
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first Night of Souls after the events of Reaper of Souls and A Wizards Tale. </p>
<p>"Life does not simply give in to death, and the soul is more than some abstract idea." -  <br/> http://www.diablowiki.net/Night_of_Souls#sthash.DSfyAubA.dpuf</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Night of Souls

**Author's Note:**

> This is a short story set in entirely in the world of Sanctuary :)

Westmarch had survived the War of the Great Evils relatively untouched, continuing to thrive and suddenly found itself unequaled after its sole rival Caldeum was destroyed. That was until the events of the following months when Malthael had unleashed his Reapers on the whole of Sanctuary. Westmarch found itself the bulls-eye of the Angel of Deaths attacks.

In those dark, turbulent days before the attacks were fully understood, thousands of people had perished. The day had started like any other, craftsmen and labors went off to their work, the Lords were in debate over forming a new government, mothers were attending to their homes and babes while children played outside. Then, just as someone blew out a candle, the world seemed to change. 

Death ran unchecked through the avenues, rutted streets and narrowest alleyways; Death Maidens swept the city, capturing and turning any they found. Those who escaped were hunted down by the twisted entities of reanimated fiends and murders called Executioners. No one in those first nightmarish days that lived was not in some manner untouched by death; whole families and sections of the great city were lost. 

Now all but a year later, the Nephalem watched the sun sink from the veranda of a villa near the reforming cities center. In his mind, he heard Malthael's hollow, other worldly voice hiss “Death comes Nephalem.” just as he had as he stood that day facing the Angel of Death.   
“I know not wither to feel sickened or join myself.” Kormac said from beside him. 

Turning his gaze to the wide, bustling avenue Ryuu nodded. He too found himself at odds if not of a different sort. 

Through out the day, the crowds below had grown increasingly louder and thicker. 

“I believe you should join them, friend.” 

“You must be joking” 

“Yet, I am not. This, as you have stated many times, is your city; as it is the city of the revelers below. They, like you, have survived to see their homes and families wiped away and we are merely near the end of the first stage of rebuilding.”

The Templar regarded Ryuu for a moment and realized why he had found the Wizard brooding, idle and alone watching the setting sun on this day of all days. 

Below them, the survivors of Westmarch and those who had flocked to the grand city to rebuild their lives stopped and watched the ever growing procession of the Parade of Souls. Costumed and painted people among the procession played music or handed out treats, trinkets or announcements to the crowd, groups of people had created larger than life skeletal paper puppets festooned with cheap gems, glitter and paints and danced them around the parade to the amusement of young and old. Here and there, local and widely known celebrities were carried up on the shoulders of strong men and waved and bantered with the crowds. Along the route, performers hurriedly setting up their stages as drunks and about to be drunks flowed into, and seldom out of, the taverns. 

“Is that Lyndon?” the Templar swore.

The nearly drunk Scoundrel was surrounded by a rainbow of laughing and fawning women as he swaggered along with the parade. Wine jug in one hand and the other on the shapely bottom of the bar maid who had supplied it, Lyndon twisted his neck to peer up at the shadow laced veranda. 

“Come along Templar, I may need saving before the night is through.” he yelled up to them with a wink.

“He jests now, but wait til the fathers and husbands of those 'ladies' come looking for them!” Kormac snorted.

The Wizard said nothing, lost once again to the setting sun.

“Perhaps I should go and ensure he is not lynched.” the Templar added quietly moving away from the railing and the still Nephalem. 

Before leaving the villa, Kormac sought out the Enchantress, finding her in the walled courtyard behind the villa. She was misty eyed as she finished laying flowers among the alters of her sisters she had started the day before. Watching her for a moment with a heavy heart, Kormac spoke a prayer for Eirena and slipped away.

 

In another district of Westmarch, Haedrig looked around his workshop anxiously and cursed himself. They had settled in the rebuilding capital for the moment. Secretly, the friends had come together and debated what would be best for the Nephalem following the events of the World Rift. All but Kormac had agreed to come here in the pretense of helping the city be reborn and ensure the temporary government formed in the vacuum after King Justinian's assassination were a true government. The Blacksmith himself had strongly voiced the need for Ryuu to rest and heal, knowing all too well the bleakness the Wizard now found himself in. In a way, it was the Wizard again who had once again given Haedrig a reason. Held in great esteem by the government, when he had insisted on his friend being the official Blacksmith of the rebuilding effort, they had voted it so without a descending ballot. 

His own life nearly as back to normal as it could get, the Blacksmith sighed heavily as his eyes fell unseeing upon his work and cold fires. His thoughts turned to the Nephalem remembering having to take Kormac aside after the Templar, insisted on traveling North to aid in the on going fighting there; as the sun disappeared.

“Some are gifted to never understand the bitterness of losing the person they love.”

Snapping out of his thoughts, Haedrig turned to find Mira, transparent yet wholesome, standing near him her once warm and gentle hands folded neatly in front of her.   
“Are they truly gifted if it means they never come to know what love is?” he asked back slowly. 

Peering at him, Mira smiled. “Haedrig, are you wearing the oils from Caldeum?”

The Blacksmith found himself shifting in his stance.

“You havent worn that scent since we settled in Tristram. I have missed it! It reminds me of...”

“Our escape and our romance.” Haedrig said nervously.

Mira laughed and it seemed to the Blacksmith he was the one who was alive again. 

 

“Now, now, ladies please!” Lyndon hiccuped as he stepped back from the wagon of beauties before him, “Oh, my, Missy now put those away, they might catch cold if I am not there to ensure their warmth.” he added with a sly wink. 

“But, Lyndodles...” one of the drunken nearly naked women laughed, “there's hay to be rolled in!”

With a rude chuckle, the Scoundrel took a gulp of ale, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand he replied, “And it will be rolled in my lovely lasses, but first” tossing the bottle aside, “there is someone I must see.” And with that, he turned and walked into the cemetery ignoring the calls and moans from the hay wagon. 

The cemetery itself was smaller and newer than most and on that night, rather empty besides a few small groups of families gathered around the headstones of their loved ones. It allowed for the privacy Lyndon sought at the moment. He quickly lost himself to thought and memory as he followed the familiar path to his brothers plot. 

Like his brother had been in life, his grave was modest yet noble, a barely wilting bouquet of flowers, the tiger lilies that symbolized Newport; laying in white beautiful contrast against the dusty polished reflection of the headstone and the chilled light fog that swirled about the cemetery. It wasn’t with much surprise that the Scoundrel found no one waiting for him. Regardless, he took his least soiled handkerchief and began to wipe the city dirt from the headstone, bringing it into a brilliant gleam in the full moons light. 

“I... I don’t truly blame you.” he sighed sitting back on his hunches. “What became of you is my fault, all of it. I would be angry if I was you too.”

Only cold silence and fog answered back. Taking a small package from under his duster, he undid the twine and paper revealing a group of lilies and babysbreath. “You always were the best of us both.” he sighed laying them over the dying flowers before the headstone.

After a moment, Lyndon began to get to his feet. 

“And no flowers for me?”

Caught in a kneeling position, Lyndon's face was bewildered, “I know that voice.” he hiccuped.

The earth around him groaned as from its depths pushed up long, bony fingers. There were not just one set of hands now burrowing from under ground, but many, some with the rotting remains of flesh and muscle than became arms, shoulders, heads. 

“Vanessa? Or Bambi?” he said thinking before suddenly slapping his thigh, “No, no, Jenny wasn't it?”

“No! I am Jenny!” shrieked a partially uncovered girl a few feet to his right.

“Oh I do apologize my doe!” Lyndon sighed. He could hear the slow scrape of bones nearing his rather presentable back side.

“You mongrel!” the barer of the cold aura closing in on his back hissed, “So many innocent virtues lost to your lust and lies!”

The emerging and shuffling dead howled around him in concert breaking the stillness of the night.

At this, Lyndon indignantly got to his feet, “Now see here, all of you! They were not lies- lust yes, oh gods yes!” he chuckled gray eyes twinkling in the moonlight. He looked over at a stacked form in taverns maids dress, “Do you remember, Kimberly, how more than beer flowed that summer night! And you, Kristie, my salty acrobat!”

Despite themselves, the undead snickered and giggled, pausing for a moment.

“Enough!” the first ghoul behind the Scoundrel snapped, “You have grieved us all, Lyndon. To each of us you promised your love, marriage...”  
“You promised forever!” another undead near him, this one a Zakarum priestess wept.

“Now we aim to claim our forever!” the ghoul spat charging at him, her long rotting fingers stretched out at his neck.

Whirling around, the Scoundrel flung a dagger at her catching her in the throat. “Now I remember you!” he laughed reaching out and pulling his dagger free, “Rose Mary!” he stabbed her clean through the heart, “I mistook you that night in the stable for your daughter, Mary Rose, who by the way was far more...blooming than you.”

As Rose Mary fell with a final death wail, the remaining undead swarmed around Lyndon shrieking and howling, some their mouths gaping with sharp decaying teeth.   
“I always imagined this is how I'd meet my end,” the Scoundrel muttered gripping his dagger tightly, “ but I always took it for granted you lovelies being-alive and wanton.”  
There was a sudden flash of white light that sent the undead wheeling back, inciting them. 

Lyndon stared dumb found at the transparent figure beside him. Dashing, with a crooked smile his sword raised and ready, the Newport guard winked at him. “Always in over your head, little brother.”


End file.
